


etymology being buried

by gigi_originally



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon? What Canon?, Gen, I do what I want, Pre-Canon, mythology gone wild, names all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigi_originally/pseuds/gigi_originally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The ideal has many names and beauty is but one of them.”<br/>― W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale</p>
            </blockquote>





	etymology being buried

**Author's Note:**

> My take on Sif, her home life and all the reasons Sif/Loki makes sense given Marvel's portrayal of her character vs. the peculiar etymology and distribution of the names in Norse mythology.
> 
> Basically, I made a castle in the sand box.

She is born at the end of the Great War with Jötunheimr. It is said that the hour of her birth coincided, realms apart, with the exact moment of the Allfather’s victory. Her mother feels there cannot be a better portent for her destiny and chooses a name to share with her returning husband when he arrives for the child’s ausa vatni.

When the father returns, however, there is debate among the elders in the family. The child will be raised with the two princes. She is of age with the younger, after all, and the queen is her mother’s close friend. Given time, she could have her choice of either prince. With luck, she could be the choice of Odin’s beloved Thor. But first, she must have a name.

Much to her mother’s displeasure, Tyr names the child Sif.

 _It will forge her destiny,_ he argues.

 _It will forge her chains, s_ he retorts.

He cannot quarrel further. His wife sees what is yet unseen. Alas, what is done cannot be undone.

As appeasement he offers, _Think though;_ _for what is the need of a Sigyn in peacetime?_

In resistance she replies, _Think though; for is Asgard not a realm of warriors?_

* * *

In the early part of the expansive age between the Great War and Thor’s foolish jaunt into Jötunheimr, the realms outside of Asgard endure many a scuffle against the Jötnar. Vanaheimr warrants no exception. The Allfather sees these put down quietly and lets them be.

For her skill, for her loyalty, for her discretion and her lineage, the young Lady Sif is honored with rare the chance to fight some of her father’s most ferocious enemies. The battles are glorious. Sif fights fierce and deadly and rapidly earns the respect of her fellow Vanir warriors, so much older and more experienced than she, so wary of a woman in their midst no matter her parentage.

To battle a jötunn is no easy feat but Sif manages well enough. She learns quickly not to touch or be touched. She learns the weight and sharpness of ice and the ways to parry just so that it cracks against her blade. She learns how to use her size and speed to her advantage. While the Jötnar are no lumbering oafs, they are still bigger targets.

It is only during the last of these battles she will fight—long before Thor's coronation—that she learns what the Jötnar know of her.

In this fight, Sif has slain more than her fair share of enemies. At the head of the Vanir line, her father pushes the apparent leader toward what will pass for a Jötunn retreat. It takes merely that moment, naught more than a glance in the wrong direction, for the enemy to take her by surprise. A massive jötunn hurtles toward her bellowing a cry with such rage Sif believes she will see Vallhalla before the day ends. She almost does.

After, as she lies nursing grievous wounds that will have her mother insisting on keeping her from training (and the palace and the princes) for at least a week, her father finds her.

“I am proud of you,” he begins. This is customary of both Sif's parents for she is everything the child of War should be.

She says, “Thank you, Father.”

“You fought valiantly, my child. You are a credit to our house," and Sif can hear the pause; the promise of more—an unpleasant sort of more—inherent in his tone, "but this is the last time you will fight on Jötunheimr.”

Sif has long grown past whining. Here, her father is also her commander; her captain. She looks at him and asks simply, acceptingly, “Why?”

He eyes her wounds with just the slightest hint of fatherly exasperation before telling her: “The Jötnar will have no more of the fearsome Lady Sif.”

Already he has treated with Laufey over this battle's weregild. She would feel worse were he not almost grinning.

“They have named me in this?” she asks, surprised that they know her by anything more than the bite of her blade and the glint of her armor. 

“They speak of the lady warrior,” he says. Then his face darkens with displeasure. “They call you Angrboða. It is not a kind name."

“Angrboða,” Sif repeats. She tries the feel of the word in her mouth, the shape of the letters rolling on her tongue and clattering against her teeth. She remembers vividly the sound of that last jötunn's war cry. She thinks, briefly triumphant, of this language inaccessible to Loki but now known to her. There is a word for her in the language of the Jötnar.

"It means ‘she who offers sorrow’,” he warns. “Do not take it lightly. A name can forge your destiny.”

“As it can forge your chains,” she recites.

Sif has learnt well from both her parents.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick recap of name meanings:
> 
> Sif - "wife" or "bride"
> 
> Sigyn - "victorious girl-(friend)"
> 
> Angrboða - "the one who brings grief" or "she who offers sorrow"


End file.
